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Marcin Gortat, a.k.a. The Polish Hammer, is one of this writer's favorite players since I'm a (dumb) Polack. 

The Dallas Mavericks appear to be in a very strong position to obtain his services, and by all accounts are close to offering him a mid-level offer.  Gortat is a restricted free agent, and the Magic will have seven days to match the offer if he signs an offer sheet with the Mavs. 

According to the Orlando Sentinel, the Magic will not match this offer if that is the case.  Even though the Magic are going to be fairly thin in their frontcourt with the departures of Hedo Turkoglu and Tony Battie, finding themselves paying the luxury tax because of their backup center is a move they appear unwilling to make. 

The only team that appears to stand in the Mavs' way of landing Gortat are the Rockets, who have a huge question mark in Yao Ming.  I wouldn't be surprised to see the Rockets step up their pursuit of the Hammer, now that Artest has gone and fans are still reeling from the Chuck Hayes at center experiment taking place in the last game of the Western Confernce Semifinals. 

If the Mavs can secure Gortat's services, they will likely be on the hook for just over $30 million over five years, or $25 million over four years.  That will be a bargain compared to the $63 million they paid Erick Dampier. 

        

Hedo Turkoglu will be a Portland Trailblazer next season, even if the story won't be broken for another couple of days or so. 

Today, he met with general manager Kevin Pritchard at the Portland International Airport, and gave his best (or worst) poker face when explaining his interest in joining the Blazers.

The Blazers started rookie Nicolas Batum at small forward for just under 20 minutes per game last season, and generally struggled to find a rhythm at the position, even if second-unit gunner Travis Outlaw did enjoy some success there.  Adding Turkoglu to the mix at small forward would put an already dangerous Blazers' squad on the short list of teams that can compete in the West with the Lakers, especially after the Lakers signed Ron Artest. 

While our report is pure speculation, it is difficult for us to believe that Pritchard would make Turkoglu's visit so public if he felt at all threatened that Turkoglu wouldn't sign.  Turkoglu, who may be offered more money by the Toronto Raptors, goes on to explain that he is considering more than the finances in his decision.  With Chris Bosh all but gone during the 2010 Summer of LeBron, and Jerry Colangelo staring down the barrel of a decimated roster, Turkoglu would be crazy to land in Canada and watch his next contract be his last (good one). 

        

Get your popcorn ready! 

As if tinsel town didn't have enough story lines, the Lakers might have punched the hottest ticket in town by landing Kobe's arch nemesis. 

Ron Artest is expected to agree to terms with the Lakers this afternoon, making the team's pursuit of Trevor Ariza all but over.

The idea of Ron Artest landing in Cleveland had the rest of the league looking towards 2011 for their title hopes, but now that focus will likely shift decidedly back to the reigning NBA champions. 

Meanwhile, Trevor Ariza is reportedly meeting with the Houston Rockets, and it's entirely possible he will go to whomever will pay him best.  If he's smart, he will realize that winning championships is the best leverage in contract negotiations, and he'll join the Witness Protection Program (a.k.a. Shaq) in Cleveland. 

        

Fresh off his first championship without big man Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant has chosen not to terminate the final two years of his contract and will remain with the Los Angeles Lakers. 

Next the Lakers will have to keep up with the Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics of the world by attempting to sign free agents Lamar Odom and Trevor Ariza.

Ariza's agent has been running his mouth trying to drum up interest to as many teams that will listen, but it is unlikely that any team is going to pay more than a mid-level exception.  With Cleveland trying to acquire both Ariza and Ron Artest, the Lakers would be wise to start making Ariza feel more at home.  Ariza's decision to stay will likely come down to his personal tastes, and the Cavs might face too hard of a time convincing Ariza that he's the guy they really want when Ron Artest is that guy.  But if the Lakers balk, they might give their biggest competitor a huge break for what would amount to peanuts if he sticks a dagger in them in the Finals. 

And while many analysts have taken the easy route by assuming the Lakers would dispence of the older Odom, in favor of the younger, more athletic Ariza, we don't see it that way.  While we like Ariza, finding an athletic defender who can shoot the three is easier than finding a 6'10" big man that could conceivably run the point. 

If the Cavs acquire Ron Artest, we think the Lakers will need to keep both Odom and Ariza, to avoid being swept in a Finals matchup. 

        

What?  Nearly a year went by?  Now before you go assuming that I landed with the Hawaiian Tropic girls somewhere between Aspen and Lloyd Christmas' house, I was just writing for another site.  It was awesome.  I haven't run it by them to see if I can mention it on my tin-can and string blog-o-rama that is Pro Basketball Scoop, but I'll probably wait to mention it until I have the OK.  My guess is that they're not worried about little ol' me. 

They may or may not bring me back, but in any event watching the draft got me jones'n to feed the info to the masses.

So it will be done.  There's a lot going on with Stephen Curry and Amar'e Stoudemire, Ricky Rubio, and a plethera of big name trades—and we're just on day one after the draft. 

My initial thoughts are that the NBA will be a wide open race next year.  L.A. was far from unbeatable, Boston is aging, Cleveland's addition of Shaq hasn't grown on me yet, Orlando showed why they're not ready in the finals, Denver is on the way up, the Spurs added a nice piece in Jefferson, Houston is a question mark, and the bottom halves of both conferences' playoff qualifiers have some dark horses to make some noise.  There's good reason for up to a third of the league's G.M.'s to believe that they are a piece or two away from the Finals.  And with the economy being a wild card, it's safe to assume that the have's and have not's (on and off the court) will be courting one another in a way we haven't seen in some time. 

So strap on your seat belt, or snap into a Slim Jim, or whatever it is you do, it should be a wild ride. 

        

PBS, meet Mike Florio.  Mike Florio, PBS.

Well Mike now that you've met all 2 of our subscribers feel free to browse around.  I started PBS as something to do with my spare time but with an eye towards the distant future of being a mega-blog like PFT.  The whole endeavor has cost me $50 to date. 

You'll find PFT-inspired live blogs (during which it was incredibly hard to keep up with the action).  Mostly there are writeups of topics I found to be relevant as the NBA season progressed.  Because I was writing once per night (if lucky) I spent more time per article than I would if following the PFT format.  To be honest, sometimes the writing is bad but sometimes it hits it right on the head.    If I was running it for enterprise yet it would not be so choppy, bad, vulgar, etc.

Enjoy yourself and remember to sign up.

—PBS

        

Welcome to the best game of the round robin!

These teams don't like each other.  Kobe Bryant just floored his teammate Pau Gasol.  Lebron just bitched his defender who's trying to man him up and get under his skin.  The USA "D" is strong but Spain knows how to get to the rim.  Now that we've got Jason Kidd out of the game we can start to make some headway.  Either way, you've got 2 teams that want to murder each other (as I write Lebron just got his offensive foul, shortly after drawing one from Spain). 

Spain just dropped in Rubio and we just dropped in D-Wade, our MVP so far, and Wade steals the ball and goes in for the slam. 

In fact, I'm just going to go Brett Favre style stream of thought from here on out....that's the only way I can keep up with this.

—Chris Paul and Deron Williams are on the court now at the same time.  That's friggin awesome.

—2:44 and we've got a 20-13 lead. 

—Rubio is going to have to be the X-factor if Spain is going to win.  He's got the defense and imagination to inspire his teammates.  Him and Calderon in the backcourt can match us on their best day.

—Carmelo is the only USA player who is money from the 3 point line.

—USA is trying to knock Rubio around to intimidate him.  I like it.

—It's good to see that Marc Gasol might actually have some value in the NBA, somewhat (but not nearly) justifying the Memphis/L.A. trade sending his brother to the dark side.

—Paul just split 2 defenders on the break showing why everybody else sucks except for him.

—The USA defense is the star of the show.  They get a steal every 2-3 times on defense.  Whether or not they can hit a 3 seems to be irrelevant if they can just make you piss your pants.

—Rubio is going to have to learn something other than the back-tap form of defense if he's going to make it in the NBA.  Heck, he's going to have to learn it this game if they want to keep it within 20.

—Spain is not intimated taking it to the rim.  It's actually getting the ball from their dribble to the shooting position on non-drives where they lose their focus.

—10 turnovers for Spain in the first quarter.  USA leads 31 to 22 in a 10 minute quarter.  Imagine what would happen if somebody other than Carmelo could hit a shot (P.S. Jason Kidd still sucks).

—Reyes is playing well.  Spain's front line is actually playing bigger than ours at times (not that this is a surprise with Prince and Boozer as our backup centers.) 

—JAMES ALLEY OOP (that's odd).

—Rubio just picked James pretty embarrassingly.  That was after James punked the guy who's defending him (still trying to figure out his name, I'm an hour behind the game so I can't go online for fear of seeing the results).  Don't worry, I'll figure it out.

—Howard just used his forearm to the head of a Spain player.  Spain is doing a great job of baiting him.

—Kobe is a "little flying warrior" and Lebron is "The Little Emperor".

—Rudy Fernandez is NBA ready, it's scary to think that he's unaccounted for in terms of the Portland Trailblazers success last year (along with Oden).

—Kobe shoots the USA technicals.

—USA looks bad against the first look at zone coverage from Spain.  Gasol goes "and one" on the next possession over Chris Bosh (who missed the awkward shot against the zone). 

—Bosh and Howard have 2 fouls each at the 6:30 mark in the 2nd quarter.

—Lebron just hit his second 3 and has 14 points on 5 of 6 from the field.

—Fernandez just got an offensive foul against Bosh for what looked to be spooning.

—Kobe finally hits a 3, the US has a 14 point lead.

—Marc Gasol just got to the line drawing Kobe's 3rd foul (he's now out for the half).  Hey Spain, your center is getting covered by our shooting guard.  Go to hell.

—This zone looks to be bothering us, but how can you blame us, the court is so small.  They need to get Michael Redd into the game and Deron Williams too.  (Carmelo just buried a shot).  Those 3 could knock them out of the zone real quick.  Marc Gasol draws a foul on Anthony.

—Anthony just fouled the Spain's Rodriguez, the same guy that was getting under LeBron's skin.  The foul occurred on a made free throw by Spain.  Spain is definitely trying to play a dirty game, the US needs to keep their cool. 

—James to Wade for the dunk.  Screw you Spain.

—Rubio is back in.  Chris Paul gets the assignment .  Paul to D Williams, 3 point bucket. 

—Williams is playing like he's in Utah.

—Lebron threw it away, then so did Spain.  Lebron is getting chippy, and he looks like he's about to fight.

—Garbajosa nails a contested 3.  Coach K calls time.  USA up by 17.

—Next time the USA needs to add some inside presence other than Howard.  Nothing against Howard but there's not enough offense in him to keep him on the court all the time.

—Rubio connects with Fernandez on the alley oop.  Spain pressures and gets Paul to travel (it's not the NBA friend).

—Boozer just checked in with a minute to go.  Let's see how he fares. 

—Rubio is not intimidated at all against the greatest team in the world (and he's 17).  He's going to be a fine NBA player.

—Boozer update, just missed a close one.

—Spain is intent on pressing, which given the USA ballhandlers is interesting (and I don't know if I disagree with it).  The only way the win is if they turn this into a game of streetball.  Boozer missed another close one, but got the tip in a second later.

—USA leads by 16 at the half.  Normally that statement would be followed with something like "and USA isn't playing up to potential".  Well, they aren't'.  But neither is Spain.  This game is exactly 16 points apart until the US can show that they can take care of the ball (10 turnovers in the first half) and stop Spain defensively (I don't know what the points in the paint are but Spain is in there).

—Meatball Sandwich Break

—I guess the Chinese really like the super-fast version of C & C Music Factory's "Everybody Dance Now".

—-Holy moly Batman, I'm too tired to write anymore, time to just sit back and enjoy....

GO USA!


—

        

I scrambled to watch the China/USA game but slept through it since that's what I do (in all fairness I couldn't find the gametime anywhere, thanks NBC).  Pictures didn't do the game any justice as I heard afterwords that China played valiantly. 

I have to admit given the US team's past problems and being on China's turf I was a teeny bit nervous, but more amped up to kick some China ass.  Heck, after that opening ceremony I think I could have been fired up enough to be an effective Chinese guard (certainly more effective than they were versus Spain in the second half).

But I digress....

I have to admit that despite all of the reasons not to like China (human rights, communism, and potential rivalry with the U.S.) that I've been rooting for them ever since that game. 

Why you ask?  (I knew you would).  The reason is simple.  Yao Ming.  And while there are many storylines for this basketball tournament that are compelling and friggin' awesome, his is the most compelling.  Starting with the $300 Million Dollar opening ceremony where he stood front and center with the flag (and an entire country on his back), Yao has been the ultimate competitor and shown all of us a thing or two about loyalty to his homeland.  You see, he's just come off a knee injury that would have left so-called superstars from the USA that I'll leave nameless on the shelf.  But for Yao, this moment, and his country's moment, is bigger than himself.  This entire Olympics has been a coming-out party for the Chinese, and I it seems like the world is truly impressed.  At the center of it are China's gold medals and spectacular showcasing of this Olympiad, but literally and figuratively at the center of it is all 7'6" of Yao Ming, his hurt knee, his on the court rehab, and the emotion he is playing with that is literally "willing" his team to be competitive, when frankly they should not be.

Point in case, China's guards.  I'm pretty certain that in my prime I could have covered them.  That's not bad for the 24,534th ranked guard in the United States (remember, in my prime).  They're small, slow, bad shooters, bad decision makers, and bad defenders.  China has some talent at the 3 spot being shared by (don't want to see any updated scores online so rather than looking up the correct spelling I'll go with...) Ziu Ziu and some other guy who's played most of their games (how's that for analysis).  Then you have Yao and Yi rounding out the 5 and the 4, respectively.

It's Yi though that brought me to my feet for this most recent victory over Germany and Dirk (The Loser) Nowitzki.  Yi, frankly, has played like crap throughout the whole tournament.  This guy reminds me of one of my buddies (whattup Danny) in terms of body type, length, athleticism, skill-set, etc.  However, my buddy wouldn't stand around the court like it's his first time there.  So am I saying that my buddy should play for China, no, well, maybe, but more importantly I am saying that Yi single-handedly lost them their matchup against Spain because he couldn't guard Pao Gasol, who is neither quicker or stronger than him, just more crafty.  Yi looked like a deer in headlights on D, and even worse on offense as he picked up his dribble every time somebody looked in his general direction, which was a disaster since the guards couldn't shake the pressure from Spain to save their lives.  You see, Yi needed to step up both offensively and defensively, and while having the skills to do it, he either didn't have the focus or the courage to do it.  China lost in a heartbreaker which for most teams would have crushed their spirit.

Enter Yao Ming, and the China home court advantage.  In their game against Angola they bounced back, with Yao asserting himself as the team's physical and emotional leader.  Against Germany in a must win game, he picked up Yi Jianlian who performed like the top pick everyone expected him to be.  Yao was diving for loose balls, sprinting on the fast break, tugging his shorts from being distant from his ideal playing condition, and chest-bumping teammates after hustle plays.  Yi was all over the court on offense and defense, which had he done that against Spain we would be talking about the upset for years. 

In short, I became a Yao Ming fan for life.  He embodies everything that is great about basketball, the love for the game mixed with the edge that one gets when playing in the NBA.  It's almost as if you can hear the sweet sound of basketball ebonics coming out of his mouth but also tempered with 5,000 years of culture and self-respect.  He put his career on the line by coming back too fast, for his country, and if you're a Houston Rockets fan you might find that disconcerting, but outside of a career ending injury you can bet that your franchise center just grew exponentially overnight, as have the rest of the NBA players playing on this stage.  I haven't seen anything like this in my life, that is a competitive International tournament showcasing players playing for more than money, for national pride, and that is something we've not seen from the top of our basketball food chain, ever.

Tonight, I became a China fan, and for an American whose rooting against China in these games, it showed me how much the Olympics have transcended life this time around, and truly gives me hope that China's hospitality doesn't stop at the Olympic gates, and that a potential threat is truly a potential ally.

GO USA!

        

I once knew this center by the name of Shaquille
Body of a giant, hilariously real.

Alright, so I'm a white guy that can't rap but loves to get drunk and try anyway.  I once held a flow for a minute and honestly it ranks right up there with hitting the game-winning shot in an 8th grade CYO basketball game and striking out 16 in 7 innings of work in high school. 

So Shaquille O'Neal has now entered the national spotlight once more with this ridiculously hilarious freestyle bit about Kobe Bryant.  I've known a few people who can carry the flow better than Shaq, which means that Shaq isn't that good.  But funny, yes.  Frickin' hilarious, yes.  His diss on Kobe not winning and getting the entire crowd to chant "Kobe tell me how my ass tastes", repeatedly, must go on a short list in today's poliitically correct climate as being one of the single-most outrageous moments in recent years.  You have two former (unofficial) co-MVP teammates from a three-peat dynasty, both embroiled in huge controversy, involved in a soap opera spat sending Shaq packing, only to watch Kobe go to Denver assumedly (as Shaq puts it) smellin' some ass in one of the trials of the century.  You couldn't write this script in your wildest dreams. 

The beef was supposedly settled, and when asked for comment after tape of this show surfaced on on TMZ.com (the story is here) Shaq asked them to post a similar "song" he made about Vlade Divac during their playoff series with the Sacramento Kings, presumably to cushion the blow of this hitting the blogosphere (Vlade when reached for comment had this to say).  He has also said that he's cool with Kobe.

Somehow I don't think the feeling will be mutual.